Post-Arrival

The short trip is over and I'm happy to be back home where I belong.

Although most of the trip was devoted to work, I enjoyed myself. The meetings were fruitful and we got to meet interesting people.

As a city, Singapore seems like a place that I'd want to visit again, especially with all the different tour options that are available (all of which I haven't tried). The ones that I'm particularly interested in are the walking tours, which I only read about this morning while standing around the hotel lobby waiting for our airport shuttle.

Dinner last night was with some work colleagues at the Jumbo Seafood Restaurant in Clark Quay. The view was lovely and the river breeze was refreshing. The food itself was fine, although I wouldn't consider it anything special -- it's the same quality that you'd expect from any authentic Chinese restaurant here in Manila.

Some parts of the city remind me of Kota Kinabalu, in the sense that the streets are wide, with a lot of trees, and the architecture has Asian influences stamped all over it. The people are also more gracious than Hong Kong or mainland Chinese residents. They're in less of a rush and walking on the street isn't a 'mad crowd' experience. I can immediately understand why people would seriously entertain the idea of moving there to work or to live.

Had a little bit of adventure after dinner last night by walking back to my hotel alone. The entire journey took over thirty minutes since the hotel is around three bus stops away from Clark Quay and I didn't try to rush myself. I enjoyed the exercise -- all those weeks of hitting the exercise machine at home helped -- and the walk back home tired me out enough that I slept like a log afterwards.

I think at the end of the day, what I appreciated the most was being able to get away from the current project and clear my head for a couple of days. It was a true break, which I think I really needed.